[t413]

Yes, it seems like Control 4 was the root of his problem. My architect aunt always builds homes with similar expensive and locked-in systems and although they do seem to last reliably for years they're 10's of thousands of dollars and locked into a certain set of functionality and hardware. But there are alternatives now.

My $50 Wink hub runs my apartment's 5x $30 z-wave dimmers, 1x $25 front door sensor, and 1x $75 z-wave thermostat and 1x $15 cree xbee LED bulb I cannibalized to drive some low voltage LED fairy lights. That's $315, ordered piecemeal and all delivered amazon prime. It's been rock-solid reliable for about two years. I recently added Amazon Alexa voice control and used the open source 'HomeBridge' node project to add Siri integration (which ROCKS).

There are inexpensive connected-home systems now. Spend an afternoon wiring one up!

[dgacmu]

Strongly concur. We're remodeling right now, and I just had a conversation with my electrician about this. I purchased eight z-wave dimmers and four slave switches for the house, and he raved to me about how easily the install had gone. He says he normally has to spend about $300 on a high-end Lutron model to get the equivalent functionality. I think I've got a convert here. :)

Smart switches have been a godsend when dealing with an old house with old wiring. We had no lights in our living room -- but there were two small ones controlled by a switch on the second floor. Two bookshelf lights, one smart outlet plug, and a smart switch for the second floor + one controller == turn on the living room lights from the entryway, as FSM intended, without running any new wiring.

I've been a little grumpy about trying to be clever with the smartthings hub, but turning all the lights off at bedtime works, and I won't complain much.

[jondiggsit]

These are good alternatives until you are building a large house, where you have, say 300 switch legs, 90 dimmers, 75 keypads, etc. You start to realize Lutron is your friend.

[dgacmu]

I'd believe it. Do you have pointers to anything more with experience about this? What falls down?

(That said, I don't see needing to go there. My house has, from a quick mental count, about 52 total switches. I'm probably missing a few, but that's the right ballpark. A 300 switch house sounds like a monster.)

[jondiggsit]

Lutron RA2 systems are very reliable. I centrally (home-run) wire all of the switches for future upgradeability, but I have very little issue with their systems. They can run wirelessly, but if its new construction, must also wire.

Unless the application is a Star Wars level system, I recommend RA2, otherwise Lutron Homeworks can be your best friend.

[manyxcxi]

It's ridiculously inexpensive to get similar functionality these days. A few years ago things were too flakey to be on the critical path of my house operations, but at this point the first thing I did in my new house was to go all Z-Wave.

In the absence of a controller they are simply a normal dumb switch or outlet or thermostat.

They're not WiFi connected so they won't be the attack vector for my network, and Z-Wave has a pretty good record for secure mesh networking.

Tied together with my Wink hub, which provides all the scene controls and can bridge protocols and give me remote control and my house has most of what the OP was trying to get out of his house.

Pairing my Echo to my Wink Hub now gives me complete voice control over the house.

I'm not even $1000 into an entire brand new house wired up with Z-Wave switches everywhere, Z-Wave outlets in certain areas, an Ecobee3 thermostat, and some random other things. I've even built a few of my own sensors that I've integrated with my Wink Hub through their API.

I get why things like this used to cost so much. In a commercial setting I'd still go that route, but for my house I'm at least 10x cheaper and it's been every bit as reliable, if not more so, than every big home control setup I've ever seen.

[tzmudzin]

> They're not WiFi connected so they won't be the attack vector for my network, and Z-Wave has a pretty good record for secure mesh networking. [...]

> Pairing my Echo to my Wink Hub now gives me complete voice control over the house.

And now you have an attack vector.

[manyxcxi]

The point is now I have 1, not 43. I have a gateway. I've chosen to have a front door, not dozens of open windows.

[thro1237]

Can you point me to the z-wave dimmer and front door sensor that you are using? Thanks.

[t413]

Sure: amazon.com/gp/product/B00HPIYJWU is the door sensor and amazon.com/gp/product/B00E1OVFAK are the dimmers I have.